VETERANS: Why can’t a vet start his own waiting list site?

Thursday, December 22, 2016

http://www.mygovcost.org/2016/12/15/the-vas-secret-hospital-rankings/

The VA’s Secret Hospital Rankings
Thursday December 15th, 2016   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 7:28am PST  

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The most disturbing part of the story, however, was a revelation about the VA hospitals most closely associated with its secret waitlist scandal. (Bear in mind that veterans seeking medical treatment at those facilities were placed on secret lists that hid how long they were waiting to receive treatment, while VA administrators and supervisors used the VA’s official waiting lists to claim bonuses for meeting the VA’s goals for providing speedy service.) 

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After more than two years of President Obama’s feckless and ineffective management of the veterans health care rationing scandal and his failure to see through needed reforms, the VA is in desperate need of real reform and a management turnaround, starting with major changes in the VA’s leadership throughout its bureaucracy.

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It would seem easy for a vet to start a blog and their comrades can report their actual waiting times?

That would create a counter weight to falsified stats!

 

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The Best New Ways to Scan Your Old Photos

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-new-ways-to-scan-your-old-photos-1482256768

I think I’d like to something. The app seems like a good choice.


ISP: Leave Yahoo email ASAP

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/leave-yahoo-quit-move-gmail/

It’s Time to Leave Yahoo: How to Quit and Move to Gmail Right Now
Ben Stegner  December 20, 2016

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For the second time in recent months, Yahoo has been hit with a security breach. This time, Yahoo announced that hackers stole details from a billion accounts in August 2013.

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I’m not a fan of giving control of your email to anyone even GMAIL.

That being said you should leave Yahoo. It’s going the way of Blackberry.

May I suggest that you have your own domain? The common wisdom, or is that common whizdumb, is to own your own name as a domain name. I own “reinke.cc”. (I like saying “sea sea me at reinke.cc”! me@reinke.cc will actually work!) It gives one quite a bit of control. And, it’s very cheap.

I know three solutions at 15$/year using wordpressdotcom with gmail, 25$/year email only with 1and1, and 60$/year for domain+email+webspace also at 1and1. My point is not that you should use 1and1. http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9113251 I could care less which one you use.

It’s that getting on to your own domain with email is cheap and easy. And, it’s not hotmail, yahoo, or gmail. It IS your own “personal brand”.

I use my own domain to receive mail and GMAIL to “handle it”.

Works very nicely.

YMMV. FWIW.

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RANT: Time for individual responsibility

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

https://gearjunkie.com/rescue-fine-steamboat-springs-backcountry-skiers

December 19, 2016, 12:50 pm By: Adam Ruggiero
Rescue Fine: Steamboat Springs Warns Backcountry Skiers

New signs around the Steamboat Ski Area warn adventurous skiers of newly-implemented rescue fine.

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Ski patrol is putting up the signs, proclaiming the $500-per-person rescue fine, on out-of-bounds access gates at edges of the Steamboat Springs, Colo., ski area. The resort’s new trail maps also carry the warning.

The purpose is to deter inexperienced skiers from getting in over their heads (sometimes literally). It is also a response to an uptick in trespassers not heeding the current boundary signs.

According to a report in Steamboat Today, ski patrol director John Kohnke estimates 500 people a day slip through the access gates. This is up from about 20 when he began 40 years ago.

Neither Routt County Search and Rescue, which sometimes aids in ski area rescues, nor the Forest Service objected to the fines.

Rescue Fines In Steamboat Springs

By Colorado state law, Search and Rescue cannot charge for operations because it may deter skiers from calling for help when they need it. However, this fine appears to be directed specifically at skiers who leave through the resort gates.

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Sorry, but if you have to have the “Search and Rescue” to haul your sorry butt out, then you should pay for it. 

At the very least, they could sell “insurance”. Buy it and need us, OK. Don’t and you do, you pay.

If you spread the cost across lots of skiers, it’s probably reasonable.

No one has a “right” to be rescued.

Wonder how many of these were “repeats” or “obvious beyond their skills”.

Argh!

Time for individual responsibility.

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Five Ways to Restore the Separation of Powers

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/five-ways-to-restore-the-separation-of-powers-1482192048

Seem like some good steps.


I Used to Be So Cool. What Happened?

Monday, December 19, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-cool-1480302480

Laff. I dread the day I get “old”


Fragile Cease-Fire Resumes in Aleppo

Monday, December 19, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fragile-cease-fire-resumes-in-aleppo-1482141192

Good let’s hope it holds!


GUNS: “Miss Sloane” is a loser; good

Monday, December 19, 2016

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20161216/miss-sloane-america-votes-no-once-again

APPEARS IN NEWS
Miss Sloane: America Votes “NO” Once Again
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2016

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“You can’t win them all,” as the old saying goes, but when it comes to the Second Amendment, gun control advocates can’t even come close. Such is clearly the case with Miss Sloane, the latest of Hollywood’s repeated attempts to push a gun control narrative on the American people. Of course, they didn’t see this coming, any more than they saw a Donald Trump victory coming. But that’s because they refuse to acknowledge the basic simple truth about the American people when it comes to our firearms freedom. Well, we’ll say it again, the American people aren’t buying your anti-gun narrative.

Miss Sloane features Jessica Chastain as a Washington lobbyist who takes on “the establishment” to push for passage of gun control in the U.S. Congress. As reported by Stephen Gutowski at freebeacon.com, the “political thriller” opened last weekend to much buzz and fanfare among gun control groups, but tanked completely at the box office, making one industry list of the worst openings of the past 35 years for a movie with a national release.

Incredibly, Gutowski reports that a representative of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence actually said, “… I can tell you that its production alone, with our input, is the success.” In other words, it is of little consequence that nobody wants to see a movie that pushes for gun control, its mere existence is what matters.

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Anyone need more evidence that Hollywood is both “on a different planet” and out of touch with its Customers.

The nation has decided that the NRA is correct — “when seconds count, the police are minutes away”, “we’re all the first responders”, and “Victim disarmament is the view that it is somehow better to see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose, than see her with a gun in her hand.” — T.D. Melrose

Gun control is a racist legacy of the KKK in the Deep South. Can’t terrorize minorities when they can shoot back.

Robert A. Heinlein said it best. “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

Varmints of both the two legged and four legged varieties need to be put down quickly and efficiently. Nothing like a nice Colt 45 1911 for that purpose. Only in the movies, do bad guys survive that. Although, in a good hand, any caliber will do. Heck, sometime just “racking” a shotgun will do the trick.

Like I recently told a young lady  I know: “No one wants to be down range of a crazy woman with a gun.”

Dona Nobis Pacem

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Connecticut’s Spendthrift Capital Eyes the Wealthy Suburbs

Sunday, December 18, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/connecticuts-spendthrift-capital-eyes-the-wealthy-suburbs-1481930850

Bankruptcy is good. “Haircuts” for everyone!


Connecticut’s Spendthrift Capital Eyes the Wealthy Suburbs

Sunday, December 18, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/connecticuts-spendthrift-capital-eyes-the-wealthy-suburbs-1481930850

Bankruptcy is good. “Haircuts” for everyone!